GETTYSBURG, Pa. -- Newly announced plans by the National Park Service to create a national Civil War museum likely doom a similar but foundering project proposed last year for Hagerstown.
Although both projects are similar in scope, the National Park Service already has a 40-acre site for its proposed museum -- which would focus on the entire four-year conflict and not just a battle or two -- and is working with a nonprofit group to raise money.
Meanwhile, the Hagerstown project has fizzled. Its proponents, who launched the project last spring with much optimism, said they have been unsuccessful in securing financial backing or widespread support.
"I don't think we're pursuing it any longer," said Ed Itnyre, a member of the Antietam National Battlefield Advisory Committee, the group behind the project. "We promoted it with the county commissioners, but nothing has happened. We can do no more."
Although Mr. Itnyre and others in Hagerstown were unfamiliar with the park service's plans, they said such a project would likely spell doom for theirs.
"It seems to me that if the National Park Service puts a top-quality museum of the Civil War in Gettysburg, there's very little likelihood that a museum of similar stature would occur in Hagerstown," said state Del. D. Bruce Poole, a Washington County Democrat.
Hagerstown was touted as an ideal location for the museum because of its access to interstates 81 and 70 and its proximity to many Civil War sites in Maryland, Virginia and West Virginia.
"We thought the museum was an idea whose time had come," Mr. Itnyre said. "We wanted to get beyond the relics and battlefield statistics and explore medical treatment, the role of women, slavery and a lot broader issues."
The impetus for the park service plan is to better display and store its huge collection of Civil War artifacts. The park service's 38,000-piece collection is believed to be the largest in the country. Only a fraction of the collection is on display at the Gettysburg Visitor's Center.
"We're calling it a museum of the Civil War, because our artifacts relate to more than just to the battlefield here," said Katie Lawhon, a park spokeswoman. "We have a desire to interpret more than just what happened at Gettysburg. How did this battle relate to the war? What was going at the time? These are some of the things we think the museum will accomplish."
The park service's plans caused James Holechek, a Towson resident who spearheaded the establishment of a Maryland Monument at Gettysburg, to suspend his effort to buy and tear down the National Gettysburg Battlefield Tower. Mr. Holechek wanted to replace the tower with a state-of-the-art convention center, but scrapped the idea because it conflicted with the museum.
The Gettysburg museum has been a long-range project of the Friends of the National Parks at Gettysburg, a nonprofit group that was formed in 1989 to help preserve the historic integrity of the battlefield.
"We're shooting for the moon," said Victoria B. Greenlee, the group's executive director. "The museum has always been in our priorities. It's always been a question of financing. The park service has no way to come up with that kind of money. Something like this could only ever come from private initiative."
Ms. Lawhon agreed: "The marching orders for superintendents in the park service is to pursue partnerships."
She stressed that the Gettysburg museum proposal was preliminary. Exhibits, she said, would likely be driven by the nature of the park service collection, which includes weapons, bullets, artillery shells and shell fragments. Other exhibits or issues have not been decided, she said.
She noted, too, that a 1989 National Park Service study, commissioned by Congress, concluded that a National Museum of the Civil War should be located in Gettysburg because, more than any other site, the battlefield there "identifies and symbolizes the Civil War." No money was ever allocated for such a project, though.
Gettysburg, site of a decisive three-day battle in July 1863 in which there were more than 50,000 Union and Confederate casualties, is also the nation's most-visited battlefield. Some 1.7 million people visited the battlefield last year.
Mr. Poole said there is still support for a museum and other Civil War projects in Washington County. He and other county officials have been working to establish a Civil War tourism center in Sharpsburg.
"Maryland is such a wonderful crossroads for all this," Mr. Poole said. "We have proximity to the interstates and the Washington and Baltimore metropolitan areas. When people come to Washington, they're very interested in government and history, and we could really tap into that market."
Jo Ann Frobouck, a Sharpsburg resident and former member of the advisory board, said she believed the Hagerstown project has died because nobody stepped forward to spearhead the effort. She said support at the county level was fragmented because of several other museum proposals before the commissioners.
"I knew someone was going to jump on it," Ms. Frobouck said. "There are token museums of the Civil War here and there, but none with the kind of scope we envisioned. I knew this was going to happen."